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I was inspired by the other question "Why are the German and French languages so different?". But while, for me, the answer was obvious (the Romans did not conquer most parts of today's Germany and so on), another question came into my mind and its answer is less obvious.

Firstly, take for example Germany's close neighbour France. What are Frenchmen called in other European languages?

  • German: Franzosen
  • Italian: Francesi
  • Dutch: Fransen
  • Polish: Francuzi
  • Russian: французы (frantsuzy)
  • Norwegian: Fransk

You get the point. All of these are extremely similar to each other. But now look how the Germans are called in other languages:

  • French: Allemand
  • Italian: Tedeschi (reads: Tedeskee)
  • Dutch: Duitsers
  • Polish: Niemcy
  • Russian: немцы (nemtsy)
  • Norwegian: Tysk

Why are there so many different varieties compared to e.g. French?

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    It might be an interesting note that during Crusades, most of the Western Crusaders were known as Faranji or Franki by Middle Eastern however Germans were explicitly known as Alemani. Germans are still known as Alemani to Mid-Easterners if I am not wrong – NSNoob May 26 '16 at 06:40
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    The Slavic word (e.g. in Czech: Němec, Německo - German, Germany) has the root meaning "mute" - which is an exaggeration of the fact that they can't speak our (Slavic) language.Quite generally, Germany is called by so many different names because the Germans have been 1) important for a very long time, 2) omnipresent (tending to spread over a big part of Europe). So various other nations have associated them with some Germanic tribes that lived at various moments, and that depends. Some picked the old Germanic tribes, other the Allemanni tribe, and so on. – Luboš Motl May 26 '16 at 06:42
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    At the end, this big diversity is due to the "essence of the German nation" to be very old, going back to the Roman Empire. On the contrary, the French nation was "newly established" some 1,000+ years ago, and its birth was sharp and all other languages recorded it in the same way. Incidentally, a Czech slur for Germans is "Skopčák" whose meaning is actually less insulting than "Němec" - "S kopce" means "down the hill". It means that the Germans generally lived in the hills - Sudetenland - or were going down the hill when visiting the Czech lands. – Luboš Motl May 26 '16 at 06:44
  • @LubošMotl That is contested. There is a well founded theory that slavic word comes from name of The Nemetes, one of the German tribes which is more plausible if you ask me. – NSNoob May 26 '16 at 06:55
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    OK, I live in a culture where the Nemetes theory is known but considered much less likely, see e.g. the Etymological dictionary of the Czech language on that issue http://www.ptejteseknihovny.cz/dotazy/slovo-nemec-etymologie - The original word is probably close to the Latvian "mems", so the root goes back to the Balto-Slavic languages. – Luboš Motl May 26 '16 at 07:07
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    see e.g. the Etymological dictionary of the Czech language Or the same thing in Russian etymological dictionary. "Mute" is at the top, while "Nemetes" is at the bottom of the list. – Matt May 26 '16 at 12:32
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    All the other languages describe German[s|y] the same way a committee of blind men describes an elephant. English has hold of one ear, Italian has the trunk and another ear, French has the tail, and the Slavic languages each have one of the legs. – Monty Harder May 26 '16 at 15:03
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    Related: http://german.stackexchange.com/questions/2053/is-there-a-reason-why-germany-deutschland-is-called-so-many-different-things-i – Carsten S May 26 '16 at 15:34
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    Related: http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/7785/why-does-germanys-english-name-differ-from-its-german-name/7789#7789 – Carsten S May 26 '16 at 15:35
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    @LubošMotl "The Slavic word (e.g. in Czech: Němec, Německo - German, Germany) has the root meaning "mute" - which is an exaggeration of the fact that they can't speak our (Slavic) language." That's an ancient tradition that long predates Slavic words for Germans. The Romans would mock people who didn't speak a language intelligible to them, joking that all they did was go around saying "bar bar bar" all the time, and that's where we get the word barbarian from. – Mason Wheeler May 26 '16 at 17:30
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    Exactly, @MasonWheeler - I sort of realize that the Slavs weren't the first ones. There's this broader point that their resolution for foreigners was very crude and Germans were the most likely foreigners to meet. So I guess that at some moment, they weren't even sure whether the word "Němec" referred to any foreigner or just the German ones - it was a prototypical word for "them", just like e.g. "Czech" is probably related to "člověk" (human being / man) - nations often like to identify themselves with the humans and similarly the most typical foreign nation with mute foreigners. – Luboš Motl May 26 '16 at 17:34
  • @MasonWheeler If you're going to mention "Barbarians" and "German" in the same paragraph, then I'm required to ask if you've heard of "Rhabarberbarbara" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YcMT395UvWI – Monty Harder May 26 '16 at 17:43
  • @MontyHarder Nope, never heard of it. – Mason Wheeler May 26 '16 at 17:44
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    The "mute" theory has another point in its favour from the origin of "Slav" in слово (slovo): word. The Slavs are those who can speak, the Nemtsy are those who cannot speak. – SPavel May 26 '16 at 19:23
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    Possible duplicate of Why do some countries call Germany "Alman" too? – Peter May 27 '16 at 13:30
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    Actually, there's an error in the examples. In Polish, it's not "niemiecki" (which means: german language) but "Niemcy" (which means, the Germans). The genesis of that name is actually the same as what LubošMotl said. In polish, there is a word "niemy" (mute), and the suffix "-cy" is sometimes used to form a word meaning a group of people, i.e. głupi - głupcy (foolish - fools,foolish people), similar niemy - niemcy. However, nowadays the language is different and "Niemcy" means precisely a nation, while "mute people" is now "niemi". Almost nobody knows or senses the hidden "mute" in Niemcy – quetzalcoatl May 27 '16 at 19:00
  • Though the German for the early Germanic peoples is Germanen while the French is Germains and similarly in other languages, derived from Latin. – Henry May 28 '16 at 01:44
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    @MasonWheeler It seems the Greeks used that word before any Romans... . – oerkelens May 29 '16 at 16:54
  • Nice question. Is this a collection of nouns? The Norwegian word you have listed is an adjective. It can also be a noun though, but only when denoting the German language. German people would be referred to as tyskere. – Fiksdal Jun 07 '16 at 13:47
  • Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat. – T.E.D. Jun 09 '16 at 00:07
  • @Acroneos and also 'آلمان' (alman) in persian/farsi – AminM Sep 11 '16 at 07:20
  • Part of the problem is that there is "high" and "low" German...meaning in the language itself. So while the French argue continuously over "proper French" arguing over "what is a German?" is actually a problem. For example "I am Dutch" gets the same response from even if you say "I am Austrian"...namely "screw you, you're not German." That's been my experience in Germany at least. They do shut the hell up if you them that in German though. So basically that's what a German is to me...someone who listens when you tell them to shut the hell up in German. This is definitely not true of the Italia – Doctor Zhivago Nov 06 '16 at 00:14
  • FWIW, I see no big difference between "Duitsers" and "Deutsche". Just the spelling. I'm Dutch and live in Germany. – Rudy Velthuis Jul 21 '18 at 23:30

3 Answers3

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The Wikipedia article on this is quite detailed.

In short, Germany was never conquered by the Roman Empire, so several tribes maintained their identity as well as the Germanic language. On top of that, you have Germany's central location, out of all those factors the different names emerged based on mostly 5 different origins.

  1. Deutsch - from the Germanic language, this is what Germans call themselves as well as most other Germanic languages (English being a notable exception). The Tysk of the Norse language also stems from this. That's also valid for Italian, as "tedesco" is derived from Þiudiskaz (of the people), the same root word of "Deutsch". Curiously, Italians then call the country "Germania", following instead the etymology in the next point.

  2. German - from the Latin Germania, this is what Germans were called in the roman empire and thus it's pretty widespread. As this is the name the English used as well, it disseminated through English colonialism to many other languages. English also has the word Dutch, which was originally used to describe Germans, but nowadays only refers to residents of The Netherlands.

  3. Allemagne - from the Alamanni tribe in what is today southwestern Germany. As people in the time between the collapse of the Roman empire and the creation of the Carolingian empire (ca. 500-800) mostly came in contact with one of the many Germanic tribes some names for Germany were derived from that one tribe. This term is mostly used in the regions south and west of Germany, i.e. France and Iberia, probably through the Moors it spread towards Arabia as well. Also of note is, that there is a Latin word for the tribe, which explains how it could survive in the Latin languages spoken in western Europe.

  4. Saksa - from the Saxon tribe in northern Germany (on a modern map of Germany, they lived in Schleswig-Holstein, the northern part of Niedersachsen and the western part of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern). Same explanation as above. This mostly applies to states around the Baltic, as the Saxons had a lot of contact with tribes in this area..

  5. Nemet - The protoslavic word for foreigner forms the final category and defines the name of Germany in many eastern European languages, their tribes came into contact with Germanic ones and the name stuck. Another theory would be, that it's named after the Nemets tribe, which I think is unlikely, due to the geography between Slavic tribes and the Nemets. The Slavs lived in eastern Germany, while the Nemets were one the westernmost Germanic tribes.

For France, this is very different. Germany remained splintered into many small states until 1871. France on the other hand was essentially formed from nothing early in the middle ages, the term Francia, later becoming France was simply natural, the name for the original inhabitants of France, the Gaul, is nowhere to be found. While Germany consisted of dozens of small states loosely arranged in the Holy Roman Empire, so the identities of the regions inhabitants from ancient times remained intact, whereas France essentially didn't exist until the beginning of the middle ages.

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    furthermore, deutsch was a culture not a something associated with a country, since the HRE included many parts that were not deutsch like italian, czech, polish, french, and probably many more. – Armin May 26 '16 at 08:41
  • Probably off topic, but why do you transcribe ц as ts? Whenever I see it I must read it as тс, it seems confusing to me. – Vladimir F Героям слава May 26 '16 at 14:17
  • @VladimirF I copied it from the english wikipedia site, which lists Nemets as the word from which the names for germany were derived. – Dulkan May 26 '16 at 14:34
  • So, how did the Koreans end up with "Dokil"? – Scott Severance May 27 '16 at 03:53
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    The Koreans ended up with dogil because it's the Sino-Korean reading of the Japanese 独逸/ ドイツ doitsu, which is more clearly a loan of Deutsch. – jogloran May 27 '16 at 05:18
  • I think I have read somewhere that the "Alamanni" were a confederation of tribes. The name itself can be analyzed as "all men" = "all peoples". – Giorgio May 27 '16 at 05:51
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    @VladimirF - almost all Slavs - which includes almost everyone called Vladimír and Luboš – would transcribe ц as "c" or related (tc?) but that doesn't work for the Germanic and mostly Romance language speakers who tend to pronounce "c" as "k". By this decimation of "c", the letter became unusable for an unequivocal transcription, so they write it as "ts" or "tz" which is a similar sound although it's more composite than "c". – Luboš Motl May 27 '16 at 10:11
  • "their tribes came into with germanic ones" needs some help--I can't make sense of that sentence. – ErikE May 27 '16 at 16:06
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    In the United States there is still today a cultural group called the Pennsylvania Dutch, who are mostly descended from German immigrants fleeing war & persecution in the early 18th century. So at least in one idiomatic usage, "Dutch" can still mean "German" in English. – Michael Seifert May 27 '16 at 17:50
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    It is worth noting that French language, while it uses “Allemagne” for the country name, has two synonyms for the adjective: “allemand” and “germanique”. The latter is mostly found in formal contexts. – spectras May 28 '16 at 04:51
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    @jogloran This is a technical point, but the Japanese ドイツ derived from the dutch Duits. – Pteromys May 28 '16 at 17:00
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    «Germany remained splintered into many small states until 1871» Isn't the same kinda true for my country (Italy) as well? I mean, except the year of course, but the period is similar. However I think many languages refer to us as Ita-something. – Andrea Lazzarotto May 29 '16 at 20:47
  • France on the other hand was essentially formed from nothing early in the middle ages, the term Francia, later becoming France was simply natural, the name for the original inhabitants of France, the Gaul, is nowhere to be found. Actually in modern greek, a French is called "Gallos" (Γάλλος), and the country France is still "Gallia" (Γαλλία) – Evargalo Jan 11 '18 at 14:19
  • @Dulkan: "Deutsch" refers only to the language spoken in Germany, Austria, and the German-speaking part of Switzerland. Is Wikipedia really wrong on this? – jjack Jan 11 '18 at 17:11
  • The tribe of the Saxons never went east. It was located in northern parts, todays Lower Saxony mainly. What is now called Saxony is the result of electorial changes during the middle ages. Cf Duchy of Saxony and compare to the state of the same name today. – LаngLаngС Jan 11 '18 at 18:38
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    @jjack What do you mean? Deutsch is the german name for the german language. A "Deutscher" is a person from Germany in the german language. Germany in german is called Deutschland. In essence Deutsch refers to everything german. – Dulkan Jan 12 '18 at 13:39
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    @LangLangC True, you are techincally correct, that they are more north then east. The saxon tribe occupied parts of what is now Holstein, Niedersachsen and Mecklenburg. Thus their presence in the baltic and the spread of their name there. – Dulkan Jan 12 '18 at 13:40
  • @Dulkan: This sentence is ambiguous: "Deutsch - from the Germanic language, this is what Germans call themselves as well as most other Germanic languages (English being a notable exception)". – jjack Jan 12 '18 at 18:20
  • Nemets might have stuck due to the Huns, who lived in modern-day Hungary and went all the way to North Western France through Germany. – Denis de Bernardy Aug 08 '19 at 18:01
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Why Germany is known in world in a diverse way?

I believe this has to do with different nature of encountering Germans when it came to other nations.

Germany has a more important strategic location than France does. France is in the Western most reach of the Continent while Germany is in the center and had more dealings with Slavs in the East, Latins in the South, Nordics in the North and Frisian/Dutch in the West. They have also traditionally dominated/or played an very important role in global affairs since ancient times. (This does not imply that France did not play a similar role).

France was a nation for most of the time ever since Franks captured Gaul but Germans were separated into small states for most part of their history until the unification of 1871, which ironically also materialized after defeating the French in Franco-Prussian war of 1870. Which is why different nations came to know them by names of different factions or tribes.

Etymology of different names for Germans

France was ruled by Franks who also conquered Other German tribes which also included a very large tribe named Alemanni who settled in Eastern Direction of Frankish realm, along the Swiss border and beyond, precisely the Alsace Lorraine region. Thus French came to know the people East of the Rhine as Allemand.

Italians call the Germans Tedeschi but it derives from Theodiscus which shares the same root as original word Deutsch. I thought it had something to do with Teutonic but that's not the case.

Dutch are Germanic people themselves and among all other Germanic languages, Dutch is closest to German. Therefore they use Duitsers which is very close to original word Deutsch.

The Slavic name Niemecki (And other variants) for Germans comes from name of yet another Germanic tribe, the Nemetes who lived in region of Lake Constance. Luboš Motl has pointed out another theory for this word which I quote:

"The Slavic word (e.g. in Czech: Němec, Německo - German, Germany) has the root meaning "mute" - which is an exaggeration of the fact that they can't speak our (Slavic) language".

But I am more inclined to believe the Nemetes theory because the theory presented by Lubos is suspiciously similar to how Arabs used to mock Non-Arabs by calling them Ajam which basically means mute. Nevertheless, Luboš Motl's theory has more evidence than the one I presented does but well someone had to present it.

The Scandinavian name Tysk for Germans is derived from old Norse word þýzkr which means the People. German word Deutsch is also derived from the root word þeudō which also means the people. Which is why Nordics call the Germans Tysk and Germany Tyskland.

A map describing the local name for Germany in different nations of Europe, Near East, Caucasus and North Africa:

enter image description here

NSNoob
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    The problem with the Nemetes theory is, that they lived far away from the slavic tribes. The marcomanni, goths or vandals/lugiens would be much more likely to be chosen as names for germans. Take a look at this map https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e0/Europa_Germanen_50_n_Chr.svg/2000px-Europa_Germanen_50_n_Chr.svg.png The vandals/lugiens are pretty much right where present day poland is. While the Nemets sit right on the roman border. Why would slavic people name germans after a tribe so far to the west? – Dulkan May 26 '16 at 11:37
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    But I am more inclined to believe the Nemetes theory That's just your personal opinion. Yet in Russian philology "немец"="mute" (historical term for any foreigner) is considered no.1 theory. Consult, for example, Vasmer etymological dictionary. – Matt May 26 '16 at 12:26
  • @Matt, It is indeed my personal view which is why I began it with "I am more inclined to believe". Thank you for the link. I will take a look at it in a moment – NSNoob May 26 '16 at 12:44
  • @Dulkan That is a very interesting note. For academic honesty I did include the theory about "mute" being root of slavic demonym for Germans. I will surely take a look at it. thanks – NSNoob May 26 '16 at 12:45
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    Also note that "nemets" is direct antonym of "slav". When "nemets" is "mute", slav is literaly "worder" - it uses same root as word "slovo" for word. You can even find explanation about "nemets" in wiki article about Slavs. – Oleg V. Volkov May 26 '16 at 13:56
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    @OlegV.Volkov Interesting bit of info Oleg. That's also like Arab and Ajam which are also antonyms to each other. Ajam means mute while Arab means well someone who is fluent in speaking. – NSNoob May 26 '16 at 14:03
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    Dear @NSNoob - I upvoted your answer but the claim that "Ajam" in Arabic for non-Arabs (or Persians) means "mute" is also true! And the fact that both Slavs and Arabs looked at the foreigners in this way (you don't speak our language, so you're basically mute) reinforces both related theories, instead of weakening them. I don't want to identify the three groups too closely ;-), but gypsies are also using "Rom" for themselves which basically translates as "human", while others are "gadžo" (a village bumpkin). It's biologically natural to partly dehumanize those whom I don't understand. – Luboš Motl May 27 '16 at 10:17
  • @LubošMotl I understand your point mate. But call it a personal flaw of mine, If I see two historical things have similarity I begin to suspect one of them was inspired from the other. You have very solid arguments and I do not presume to know more about your culture than you do. :) – NSNoob May 27 '16 at 10:19
  • @NSNoob - I am not necessarily claiming that they're independent. The Slavs could have had inspired themselves by the Arabs, too. It's more sensible to say that it's a natural reaction of most free humans in any ethnic group. Political correctness wasn't hot 1500 years ago. Note that Romans used the Greek word "Ethiopia" for the whole non-Roman Africa. The name has 2 parts and translates as "burned faces". This name for Africa made much more sense than the impersonal, information-lacking word "Africa" (from a self-named Afri tribe?). – Luboš Motl May 27 '16 at 10:22
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    @LubošMotl I have edited the answer to admit the overwhelming evidence in favor of your argument. :) – NSNoob May 27 '16 at 10:24
5

German.Stackexchange: Is there a reason why Germany (Deutschland) is called so many different things in other European languages?

English.Stackexchange: Why does Germany's English name differ from its German name?

History.Stackexchange: Why do some countries call Germany "Alman" too?

Wikipedia: Names of Germany

Because of Germany's geographic position in the centre of Europe, as well as its long history as a non-united region of distinct tribes and states, there are many widely varying names of Germany in different languages [...]

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